Everyone seems to be waiting uneasily for the Tories to pull ahead. The antidote to that slightly depressing thought is Nick P. Who better to judge the state of play than Nick an ex and future MP who's been there and done it....
So gird your loins lefties. In Nick We Trust.
Yep. It's a tie. It's been a tie for months, occasionally with one or the other pulling fractionally ahead, then falling back. All kinds of game-winning wheezes and media offensives have already happened, with no visible effect.
Labour wins easily on a tie. And there are just 6 weeks to go.
Everyone seems to be waiting uneasily for the Tories to pull ahead. The antidote to that slightly depressing thought is Nick P. Who better to judge the state of play than Nick an ex and future MP who's been there and done it....
So gird your loins lefties. In Nick We Trust.
Yep. It's a tie. It's been a tie for months, occasionally with one or the other pulling fractionally ahead, then falling back. All kinds of game-winning wheezes and media offensives have already happened, with no visible effect.
Labour wins easily on a tie. And there are just 6 weeks to go.
There was a small, but persistent, Labour lead from the end of October, to the end of February. Often the Conservatives would appear to close that gap, only for it to widen again.
It's only since the start of March that the parties have been consistently tied.
Everyone seems to be waiting uneasily for the Tories to pull ahead. The antidote to that slightly depressing thought is Nick P. Who better to judge the state of play than Nick an ex and future MP who's been there and done it....
So gird your loins lefties. In Nick We Trust.
Yep. It's a tie. It's been a tie for months, occasionally with one or the other pulling fractionally ahead, then falling back. All kinds of game-winning wheezes and media offensives have already happened, with no visible effect.
Labour wins easily on a tie. And there are just 6 weeks to go.
Labour have been ahead every week since August - except for week-ending 15th March, when they led by 0.0%!
So when it is rounded as usual, Lab and Con are level.....
It's tighter than a duck's arse at the moment.
It's relatively unspooky. If crossover is the transition from sustained, day in-day out Lab leads to sustained, day in-day out Con leads, it's what we would rather expect to see in the transition period. All will be clear in hindsight.
This past fortnight has seen the phone pollsters (ICM, Ashcroft Comres) moving back from fairly good CON positions while the online firms have moved from LAB leads.
Indeed. A discrepancy so weird that we can either take it as evidence that polling is broken and ignore all polls, or try to smooth it by looking at the average.
My own view is that current polling establishes the views of self-selected oddballs. What we need is to scrap phone polling, scrap online panels and get some big, big online businesses like Paypal and Tesco to stick an occasional question in the login or checkout process saying "Hey, you don't have to, but we'll credit your account with 50p if you answer this VI question for us".
So when it is rounded as usual, Lab and Con are level.....
It's tighter than a duck's arse at the moment.
It's relatively unspooky. If crossover is the transition from sustained, day in-day out Lab leads to sustained, day in-day out Con leads, it's what we would rather expect to see in the transition period. All will be clear in hindsight.
This past fortnight has seen the phone pollsters (ICM, Ashcroft Comres) moving back from fairly good CON positions while the online firms have moved from LAB leads.
Indeed. A discrepancy so weird that we can either take it as evidence that polling is broken and ignore all polls, or try to smooth it by looking at the average.
My own view is that current polling establishes the views of self-selected oddballs. What we need is to scrap phone polling, scrap online panels and get some big, big online businesses like Paypal and Tesco to stick an occasional question in the login or checkout process saying "Hey, you don't have to, but we'll credit your account with 50p if you answer this VI question for us".
Yeah, absolutely.
Ask the same question a few times too (can you remember if you voted back in 2010? Who did you vote for?) - if you get the same answer a few times then you've got more reliable data. Different answers then you discard it
Paypal etc can also link it to postcodes & the ER.
Might sound like a daft question - but is the SNP retaining all it's vote from last time ?
I suspect a couple of tartan Tories might have joined the real Tories but it's just a hunch.
By no means all SNP voters were pro-indy and it wouldn't surprise me if some people have believed the Tories' endless yarns about the current matter being indyref No 2 rather than GE2015 and been spooked into going Tory. However, perhaps those really were Tories who had tactically voted SNP to keep Labour out.
I can't remember seeing any studies of the matter.
So when it is rounded as usual, Lab and Con are level.....
It's tighter than a duck's arse at the moment.
It's relatively unspooky. If crossover is the transition from sustained, day in-day out Lab leads to sustained, day in-day out Con leads, it's what we would rather expect to see in the transition period. All will be clear in hindsight.
This past fortnight has seen the phone pollsters (ICM, Ashcroft Comres) moving back from fairly good CON positions while the online firms have moved from LAB leads.
Indeed. A discrepancy so weird that we can either take it as evidence that polling is broken and ignore all polls, or try to smooth it by looking at the average.
My own view is that current polling establishes the views of self-selected oddballs. What we need is to scrap phone polling, scrap online panels and get some big, big online businesses like Paypal and Tesco to stick an occasional question in the login or checkout process saying "Hey, you don't have to, but we'll credit your account with 50p if you answer this VI question for us".
Everyone seems to be waiting uneasily for the Tories to pull ahead. The antidote to that slightly depressing thought is Nick P. Who better to judge the state of play than Nick an ex and future MP who's been there and done it....
So gird your loins lefties. In Nick We Trust.
Yep. It's a tie. It's been a tie for months, occasionally with one or the other pulling fractionally ahead, then falling back. All kinds of game-winning wheezes and media offensives have already happened, with no visible effect.
Labour wins easily on a tie. And there are just 6 weeks to go.
So when it is rounded as usual, Lab and Con are level.....
It's tighter than a duck's arse at the moment.
It's relatively unspooky. If crossover is the transition from sustained, day in-day out Lab leads to sustained, day in-day out Con leads, it's what we would rather expect to see in the transition period. All will be clear in hindsight.
This past fortnight has seen the phone pollsters (ICM, Ashcroft Comres) moving back from fairly good CON positions while the online firms have moved from LAB leads.
Indeed. A discrepancy so weird that we can either take it as evidence that polling is broken and ignore all polls, or try to smooth it by looking at the average.
My own view is that current polling establishes the views of self-selected oddballs. What we need is to scrap phone polling, scrap online panels and get some big, big online businesses like Paypal and Tesco to stick an occasional question in the login or checkout process saying "Hey, you don't have to, but we'll credit your account with 50p if you answer this VI question for us".
Didn't Readers Digest try that once?
No idea. And Readers Digest readers aren't what I'd automatically classify as non-oddball. Tesco and Paypal only narrows it down to people who eat food, and buy stuff with money. And operate online, obv.
Survation also ask a secondary voting intention question: “The General Election is on 7 May 2015. Thinking specifically about your constituency and the parties and candidates likely to be in contention, how do you think you will vote on 7 May” Results to that question prompt are (with change in brackets since 24th February 2015):
LAB candidate 32% (-1); CON candidate 32% (+3); UKIP candidate 17% (-2); LD candidate 9% (-1); SNP candidate 5% (NC); GRE candidate 4% (+1); another candidate 1% (+1)
Seeing that 4 turn to 5% for the Nats is nice.
Indeed, I think SNP are heading for over 50%, I note MAY2015 already are modelling for this scenario. Anyway Mrs Calum has loosened the purse strings and is allowing me to top up my SLAB wipeout bets with William Hill.
So when it is rounded as usual, Lab and Con are level.....
It's tighter than a duck's arse at the moment.
It's relatively unspooky. If crossover is the transition from sustained, day in-day out Lab leads to sustained, day in-day out Con leads, it's what we would rather expect to see in the transition period. All will be clear in hindsight.
This past fortnight has seen the phone pollsters (ICM, Ashcroft Comres) moving back from fairly good CON positions while the online firms have moved from LAB leads.
Indeed. A discrepancy so weird that we can either take it as evidence that polling is broken and ignore all polls, or try to smooth it by looking at the average.
My own view is that current polling establishes the views of self-selected oddballs. What we need is to scrap phone polling, scrap online panels and get some big, big online businesses like Paypal and Tesco to stick an occasional question in the login or checkout process saying "Hey, you don't have to, but we'll credit your account with 50p if you answer this VI question for us".
Didn't Readers Digest try that once?
No idea. And Readers Digest readers aren't what I'd automatically classify as non-oddball. Tesco and Paypal only narrows it down to people who eat food, and buy stuff with money. And operate online, obv.
Tesco - southern weighting, not green, online = middle class,
So when it is rounded as usual, Lab and Con are level.....
It's tighter than a duck's arse at the moment.
It's relatively unspooky. If crossover is the transition from sustained, day in-day out Lab leads to sustained, day in-day out Con leads, it's what we would rather expect to see in the transition period. All will be clear in hindsight.
This past fortnight has seen the phone pollsters (ICM, Ashcroft Comres) moving back from fairly good CON positions while the online firms have moved from LAB leads.
Indeed. A discrepancy so weird that we can either take it as evidence that polling is broken and ignore all polls, or try to smooth it by looking at the average.
My own view is that current polling establishes the views of self-selected oddballs. What we need is to scrap phone polling, scrap online panels and get some big, big online businesses like Paypal and Tesco to stick an occasional question in the login or checkout process saying "Hey, you don't have to, but we'll credit your account with 50p if you answer this VI question for us".
Didn't Readers Digest try that once?
No idea. And Readers Digest readers aren't what I'd automatically classify as non-oddball. Tesco and Paypal only narrows it down to people who eat food, and buy stuff with money. And operate online, obv.
Ah - you don't know the story then. Google their attempt at mass-participation polling from 1936.
Everyone seems to be waiting uneasily for the Tories to pull ahead. The antidote to that slightly depressing thought is Nick P. Who better to judge the state of play than Nick an ex and future MP who's been there and done it....
So gird your loins lefties. In Nick We Trust.
Yep. It's a tie. It's been a tie for months, occasionally with one or the other pulling fractionally ahead, then falling back. All kinds of game-winning wheezes and media offensives have already happened, with no visible effect.
Labour wins easily on a tie. And there are just 6 weeks to go.
Labour have been ahead every week since August - except for week-ending 15th March, when they led by 0.0%!
So much for Nick Palmer's "it's been a tie for months with barely any change" theory.
Labour's lead has been in steady and slow decline for about two years. It now barely exists.
But it is a slow decline, and slowing further - and now it has almost stopped.
I'm still calling a tiny Labour plurality, but not with much conviction. A total Labour wipe out in Scotland now seems entirely possible, which - as we all know - throws all our calculations into chaos.
So when it is rounded as usual, Lab and Con are level.....
It's tighter than a duck's arse at the moment.
It's relatively unspooky. If crossover is the transition from sustained, day in-day out Lab leads to sustained, day in-day out Con leads, it's what we would rather expect to see in the transition period. All will be clear in hindsight.
This past fortnight has seen the phone pollsters (ICM, Ashcroft Comres) moving back from fairly good CON positions while the online firms have moved from LAB leads.
Indeed. A discrepancy so weird that we can either take it as evidence that polling is broken and ignore all polls, or try to smooth it by looking at the average.
My own view is that current polling establishes the views of self-selected oddballs. What we need is to scrap phone polling, scrap online panels and get some big, big online businesses like Paypal and Tesco to stick an occasional question in the login or checkout process saying "Hey, you don't have to, but we'll credit your account with 50p if you answer this VI question for us".
Didn't Readers Digest try that once?
No idea. And Readers Digest readers aren't what I'd automatically classify as non-oddball. Tesco and Paypal only narrows it down to people who eat food, and buy stuff with money. And operate online, obv.
Tesco - southern weighting, not green, online = middle class,
Either your sample = your population, or you get that sort of error: I am just trying to suggest an improvement, not Nirvana. If you think Tesco is southern-weighted, I can promise you the locals don't call Inverness Tescopolis for nothing. And the claim that online=middle class is preposterous.
Dr Spyn. I really don't want to turn into SeanT but this is one of the series. You get the idea. They were all heroic and Scottish and would have been better with 'local Hero'
Don't worry, there is no comparison. You made adverts for tampons. I write actual novels.
And by the way, an advert is not a "film" as you call your work in the prior thread, it is an advert. For a tampon.
Roger: ". He's been something of a hero since he turned down £1,000,000 to let the 'Local Hero' soundtrack be used for the Scottish Power film I shot..."
"Film".
lol.
Scottish Power ''Your future is our future'' Tell that to Ed.
So when it is rounded as usual, Lab and Con are level.....
It's tighter than a duck's arse at the moment.
It's relatively unspooky. If crossover is the transition from sustained, day in-day out Lab leads to sustained, day in-day out Con leads, it's what we would rather expect to see in the transition period. All will be clear in hindsight.
This past fortnight has seen the phone pollsters (ICM, Ashcroft Comres) moving back from fairly good CON positions while the online firms have moved from LAB leads.
Indeed. A discrepancy so weird that we can either take it as evidence that polling is broken and ignore all polls, or try to smooth it by looking at the average.
My own view is that current polling establishes the views of self-selected oddballs. What we need is to scrap phone polling, scrap online panels and get some big, big online businesses like Paypal and Tesco to stick an occasional question in the login or checkout process saying "Hey, you don't have to, but we'll credit your account with 50p if you answer this VI question for us".
Didn't Readers Digest try that once?
No idea. And Readers Digest readers aren't what I'd automatically classify as non-oddball. Tesco and Paypal only narrows it down to people who eat food, and buy stuff with money. And operate online, obv.
Ah - you don't know the story then. Google their attempt at mass-participation polling from 1936.
My proposals of Tesco and Paypal obviate the howling errors made in that case (where they polled only magazine-subscribers, car- and telephone-owners in the days when those were all indicators of affluence).
There seems little doubt that even at this stage we are seeing herding or bunching by the various pollsters none of whom want to be seen as obviously different in case this causes reputational damage. This is quite normal in the final polls but to see it this far out suggests we are about to see the most boring campaign in history polling wise.
I think the one thing we can say with some confidence is that the pollsters will coalesce around a point that is wrong. Whether it is wrong to the benefit of the Tories or Labour is harder to say. Historically it has tended to be to the detriment of the Tories but pollsters have been trying so hard to remove that bias it is entirely possible they have overcompensated.
For the avoidance of any doubt I am not suggesting that any of our even vaguely reputable pollsters have any intentional bias at all. They are trying really hard to get it right in a world that increasingly does not want to speak to them. But it is just foolish not to acknowledge that they are businesses who have to keep an eye on what the competition is doing and to keep any risk taking to an acceptable level.
Not a patch on Depeche Mode or any other 1980s synthpop band!
Can anyone shed any light on why there have been so many synthpop acts that consisted of two individuals of whom one or both were gay men?
Two-man acts are uncommon to begin with, but it always struck me as plain odd that there were so many of the above:
Sparks Soft Cell Yazoo Erasure Communards Pet Shop Boys Hall and Oates Red Box Savage Garden
etc
Sparks...?
:classic-seventies:
'This town ain't big enough', 1974!
Yes it was played today on Daily Politics in guess the year,along with Lord Lucan.
Re-reading the original post it gets worse: Sparks were brothers. It is almost as if aspersions were being made about all-male, family bands!
Or a belief in a system where correlation does equal causation; unscientific and grounded on conjecture. What to call it: The global-warming ['warm' in the German sense] of pop...?
Everyone seems to be waiting uneasily for the Tories to pull ahead. The antidote to that slightly depressing thought is Nick P. Who better to judge the state of play than Nick an ex and future MP who's been there and done it....
So gird your loins lefties. In Nick We Trust.
Tories need to be quite a way ahead before Nick doesn't get back in. With his AB cohort of determined 2010 Lib Dems he is well on his way.
What about all the rest who are not happy to see him corralled into the lobbies by Salmond? The purpose of which is to spend their money on Scotland.
The Good Lady Wifi is at a bash tonight honouring 25 years of BBC films. Be interesting to see what she reports back about attitudes to how the Beeb has played the Mr C affair....
Not a patch on Depeche Mode or any other 1980s synthpop band!
Can anyone shed any light on why there have been so many synthpop acts that consisted of two individuals of whom one or both were gay men?
Two-man acts are uncommon to begin with, but it always struck me as plain odd that there were so many of the above:
Sparks Soft Cell Yazoo Erasure Communards Pet Shop Boys Hall and Oates Red Box Savage Garden
etc
Yazoo was straight man and a woman - Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet. Clarke was previously in Depeche Mode and now in Erasure.
Were these bands any good? That might have some bearing on why they chose to perform together. Is there any sort of band called Yellow Box?
Erasure are one of the all time greats, they released hit after hit, all of them excellent. Their albums Wonderland and Circus can be listened to in their entirety. No filler.
Far too late to change the strategy now and, IMHO, it's probably the only credible one the Tories had to run with. But there is a risk the voters now think the Tories have done their 'job', fixed the economy, and it's now safe to put Labour back in power again.
The Good Lady Wifi is at a bash tonight honouring 25 years of BBC films. Be interesting to see what she reports back about attitudes to how the Beeb has played the Mr C affair....
Never mind that, which great films have they made over 25 years? I bet they won't be honouring The Falklands Play.
Everyone seems to be waiting uneasily for the Tories to pull ahead. The antidote to that slightly depressing thought is Nick P. Who better to judge the state of play than Nick an ex and future MP who's been there and done it....
So gird your loins lefties. In Nick We Trust.
Tories need to be quite a way ahead before Nick doesn't get back in. With his AB cohort of determined 2010 Lib Dems he is well on his way.
I'm not totally convinced. Anna Soubry is quite appealing and I'd like to see her remain as an MP. Thankfully I don't vote in Broxtowe so I don't have to make that choice.
Interesting Mike. May I ask, what is it about her you find so appealing?
So when it is rounded as usual, Lab and Con are level.....
It's tighter than a duck's arse at the moment.
It's relatively unspooky. If crossover is the transition from sustained, day in-day out Lab leads to sustained, day in-day out Con leads, it's what we would rather expect to see in the transition period. All will be clear in hindsight.
This past fortnight has seen the phone pollsters (ICM, Ashcroft Comres) moving back from fairly good CON positions while the online firms have moved from LAB leads.
Indeed. A discrepancy so weird that we can either take it as evidence that polling is broken and ignore all polls, or try to smooth it by looking at the average.
My own view is that current polling establishes the views of self-selected oddballs. What we need is to scrap phone polling, scrap online panels and get some big, big online businesses like Paypal and Tesco to stick an occasional question in the login or checkout process saying "Hey, you don't have to, but we'll credit your account with 50p if you answer this VI question for us".
I'm inclined to still trust the phone polls, but if you throw out all the online polls you're left with four pollsters, three of whom only produce one poll a month. So you can then get spurious changes due to random effects.
I think you're on the right track with thinking of different ways to construct a random sample, but I don't think there's an easy answer.
Everyone seems to be waiting uneasily for the Tories to pull ahead. The antidote to that slightly depressing thought is Nick P. Who better to judge the state of play than Nick an ex and future MP who's been there and done it....
So gird your loins lefties. In Nick We Trust.
Tories need to be quite a way ahead before Nick doesn't get back in. With his AB cohort of determined 2010 Lib Dems he is well on his way.
I'm not totally convinced. Anna Soubry is quite appealing and I'd like to see her remain as an MP. Thankfully I don't vote in Broxtowe so I don't have to make that choice.
Interesting Mike. May I ask, what is it about her you find so appealing?
Les ennemis des ennemis de Mike sont ses amis. She shellacked Salmond.
Not a patch on Depeche Mode or any other 1980s synthpop band!
Can anyone shed any light on why there have been so many synthpop acts that consisted of two individuals of whom one or both were gay men?
Two-man acts are uncommon to begin with, but it always struck me as plain odd that there were so many of the above:
Sparks Soft Cell Yazoo Erasure Communards Pet Shop Boys Hall and Oates Red Box Savage Garden
etc
Yazoo was straight man and a woman - Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet. Clarke was previously in Depeche Mode and now in Erasure.
Were these bands any good? That might have some bearing on why they chose to perform together. Is there any sort of band called Yellow Box?
Erasure are one of the all time greats, they released hit after hit, all of them excellent. Their albums Wonderland and Circus can be listened to in their entirety. No filler.
I have an unplayed cd from the 'Eighties* you can have (gratis). To gain it please encourage your country-volk to grow-a-pair after May '15.
So when it is rounded as usual, Lab and Con are level.....
It's tighter than a duck's arse at the moment.
It's relatively unspooky. If crossover is the transition from sustained, day in-day out Lab leads to sustained, day in-day out Con leads, it's what we would rather expect to see in the transition period. All will be clear in hindsight.
This past fortnight has seen the phone pollsters (ICM, Ashcroft Comres) moving back from fairly good CON positions while the online firms have moved from LAB leads.
Indeed. A discrepancy so weird that we can either take it as evidence that polling is broken and ignore all polls, or try to smooth it by looking at the average.
My own view is that current polling establishes the views of self-selected oddballs. What we need is to scrap phone polling, scrap online panels and get some big, big online businesses like Paypal and Tesco to stick an occasional question in the login or checkout process saying "Hey, you don't have to, but we'll credit your account with 50p if you answer this VI question for us".
Didn't Readers Digest try that once?
No idea. And Readers Digest readers aren't what I'd automatically classify as non-oddball. Tesco and Paypal only narrows it down to people who eat food, and buy stuff with money. And operate online, obv.
Ah - you don't know the story then. Google their attempt at mass-participation polling from 1936.
My proposals of Tesco and Paypal obviate the howling errors made in that case (where they polled only magazine-subscribers, car- and telephone-owners in the days when those were all indicators of affluence).
My bad. Though the substantive point stands (which I was exaggerating for effect): I don't think you'd get anything like a representative sample using either Tesco or Paypal, possibly even less so if you incentivise the participation. For all their faults, I'd still trust a 1000 sample poll from an established pollster over a 100000 sample poll from some big online operation.
The Good Lady Wifi is at a bash tonight honouring 25 years of BBC films. Be interesting to see what she reports back about attitudes to how the Beeb has played the Mr C affair....
Never mind that, which great films have they made over 25 years? I bet they won't be honouring The Falklands Play.
Truly Madly Deeply was the first An Education Billy Elliot Damned United The Duchess In the Loop Iris We need to talk about Kevin Project Nim Philomena Mrs Brown
On the BBC I'm struggling to see a long-term future. What good dramas have they made recently? I mean, global successes?
There's Sherlock. Um.. Poldark is ok. And that's about it. Please don't mention Call the Midwife or Broadchurch. I almost wrote Downton Abbey too (ITV) - that's how bad it is.
Even on Sherlock they do, what, three episodes once every two years? It just looks complacent and lazy.
I can't think of a single good comedy. Miranda is gut-wrenchingly awful. HIGNFY and Mock the Week is virtually all I watch. The investigative journalism through Panorama is very hit and miss. Andrew Neil is worth a watch on This Week, but that's hardly prime time.
The David Attenborough programmes are still world class. I would miss those. But apart from that you're left with the Britainsgotstrictlycomexfactortripe. And the rest is dross.
Radio 4 is only good when they're not peddling the BBC soft-left line, which they normally do, and only John Humphries is fair. Question Time and Newsnight aren't worth watching anymore.
Really, it is worse than poor. It is truly terrible. And we still have to pay a compulsory tax to them to watch *any* TV?
Everyone seems to be waiting uneasily for the Tories to pull ahead. The antidote to that slightly depressing thought is Nick P. Who better to judge the state of play than Nick an ex and future MP who's been there and done it....
So gird your loins lefties. In Nick We Trust.
Tories need to be quite a way ahead before Nick doesn't get back in. With his AB cohort of determined 2010 Lib Dems he is well on his way.
I'm not totally convinced. Anna Soubry is quite appealing and I'd like to see her remain as an MP. Thankfully I don't vote in Broxtowe so I don't have to make that choice.
Interesting Mike. May I ask, what is it about her you find so appealing?
Les ennemis des ennemis de Mike sont ses amis. She shellacked Salmond.
Soubry being reduced to quaking with fear, a dribbling, ranting, terrified "Outraged from Tunbridge Wells" does not come across that way as "shellacking" Salmond.
All she did was confirm that the Westminster Bubble knows their chips are probably up.
On the BBC I'm struggling to see a long-term future. What good dramas have they made recently? I mean, global successes?
There's Sherlock. Um.. Poldark is ok. And that's about it. Please don't mention Call the Midwife or Broadchurch. I almost wrote Downton Abbey too (ITV) - that's how bad it is.
Even on Sherlock they do, what, three episodes once every two years? It just looks complacent and lazy.
I can't think of a single good comedy. Miranda is gut-wrenchingly awful. HIGNFY and Mock the Week is virtually all I watch. The investigative journalism through Panorama is very hit and miss. Andrew Neil is worth a watch on This Week, but that's hardly prime time.
The David Attenborough programmes are still world class. I would miss those. But apart from that you're left with the Britainsgotstrictlycomexfactortripe. And the rest is dross.
Radio 4 is only good when they're not peddling the BBC soft-left line, which they normally do, and only John Humphries is fair. Question Time and Newsnight aren't worth watching anymore.
Really, it is worse than poor. It is truly terrible. And we still have to pay a compulsory tax to them to watch *any* TV?
Poppycock.
Biggest mistake they made with Panorama, cutting it to 30 mins. At one point, it was more like 20-25 mins, with the Jeremy Vine pouncing about at the start and end and a "lets see what we have next week" and "if you want to talk about this issues further..." filling what little time they have.
You can't explore any sort of complex issue in 25 mins. You need to the background, the context, before getting to the investigation and the summing up / right to reply.
On the BBC I'm struggling to see a long-term future. What good dramas have they made recently? I mean, global successes?
There's Sherlock. Um.. Poldark is ok. And that's about it. Please don't mention Call the Midwife or Broadchurch. I almost wrote Downton Abbey too (ITV) - that's how bad it is.
Even on Sherlock they do, what, three episodes once every two years? It just looks complacent and lazy.
I can't think of a single good comedy. Miranda is gut-wrenchingly awful. HIGNFY and Mock the Week is virtually all I watch. The investigative journalism through Panorama is very hit and miss. Andrew Neil is worth a watch on This Week, but that's hardly prime time.
The David Attenborough programmes are still world class. I would miss those. But apart from that you're left with the Britainsgotstrictlycomexfactortripe. And the rest is dross.
Radio 4 is only good when they're not peddling the BBC soft-left line, which they normally do, and only John Humphries is fair. Question Time and Newsnight aren't worth watching anymore.
Really, it is worse than poor. It is truly terrible. And we still have to pay a compulsory tax to them to watch *any* TV?
Poppycock.
I would happily sell my house and all its contents to help the BBC!
So when it is rounded as usual, Lab and Con are level.....
It's tighter than a duck's arse at the moment.
It's relatively unspooky. If crossover is the transition from sustained, day in-day out Lab leads to sustained, day in-day out Con leads, it's what we would rather expect to see in the transition period. All will be clear in hindsight.
snip for space
Indeed. A discrepancy so weird that we can either take it as evidence that polling is broken and ignore all polls, or try to smooth it by looking at the average.
My own view is that current polling establishes the views of self-selected oddballs. What we need is to scrap phone polling, scrap online panels and get some big, big online businesses like Paypal and Tesco to stick an occasional question in the login or checkout process saying "Hey, you don't have to, but we'll credit your account with 50p if you answer this VI question for us".
Didn't Readers Digest try that once?
No idea. And Readers Digest readers aren't what I'd automatically classify as non-oddball. Tesco and Paypal only narrows it down to people who eat food, and buy stuff with money. And operate online, obv.
Ah - you don't know the story then. Google their attempt at mass-participation polling from 1936.
My proposals of Tesco and Paypal obviate the howling errors made in that case (where they polled only magazine-subscribers, car- and telephone-owners in the days when those were all indicators of affluence).
My bad. Though the substantive point stands (which I was exaggerating for effect): I don't think you'd get anything like a representative sample using either Tesco or Paypal, possibly even less so if you incentivise the participation. For all their faults, I'd still trust a 1000 sample poll from an established pollster over a 100000 sample poll from some big online operation.
My substantive point is that an online panel is crazily self-selected. Tesco and Paypal are just examples, you are welcome to think of others you think would work better. And I was contemplating using these websites as a data source only - I wouldn't trust the scheme unless it were designed and operated by a proper BPC pollster.
The Good Lady Wifi is at a bash tonight honouring 25 years of BBC films. Be interesting to see what she reports back about attitudes to how the Beeb has played the Mr C affair....
Never mind that, which great films have they made over 25 years? I bet they won't be honouring The Falklands Play.
Truly Madly Deeply was the first An Education Billy Elliot Damned United The Duchess In the Loop Iris We need to talk about Kevin Project Nim Philomena Mrs Brown
and, er, Mrs Brown's Boys D'Movie....
Heh... mostly not my cup of tea and very little genuinely entertaining. That goes for Mrs Browns Boys too. An appalling load of drivel. But that is the modern BBC. Misery and Drivel.
PS Billy Elliot was a good effort - but where was it set? Ah yes the miners strike...
In terms of drama..the problem the BBC have is when they do put decent stuff out it is 6-8 episodes max.
With the world of HBO, Netflix, Amazon, the world has changed. They are making high quality, in some cases e.g Boardwalk Empire, massive budget cinematic experiences, but not 6 episodes, rather 14-24 per season.
People love the box sets and the demand is there to gobble up all that content, as people watch both at home and on the move.
In roughly about the time it has taken the BBC to make 9 episodes of Sherlock, there were 56 episodes of Boardwalk Empire (and that isn't even one of the shows that had really long seasons). Now more isn't always better, but in a world where people eat up content, you need plenty of it to keep feeding the demand.
However good Sherlock might be (I don't know, I don't watch it) realistically most people will watch each episode once, maybe twice, and then that will be it for quite a few years.
It is why panel shows are everywhere. Cheap and quick to produce.
On the BBC I'm struggling to see a long-term future. What good dramas have they made recently? I mean, global successes?
There's Sherlock. Um.. Poldark is ok. And that's about it. Please don't mention Call the Midwife or Broadchurch. I almost wrote Downton Abbey too (ITV) - that's how bad it is.
Even on Sherlock they do, what, three episodes once every two years? It just looks complacent and lazy.
I can't think of a single good comedy. Miranda is gut-wrenchingly awful. HIGNFY and Mock the Week is virtually all I watch. The investigative journalism through Panorama is very hit and miss. Andrew Neil is worth a watch on This Week, but that's hardly prime time.
The David Attenborough programmes are still world class. I would miss those. But apart from that you're left with the Britainsgotstrictlycomexfactortripe. And the rest is dross.
Radio 4 is only good when they're not peddling the BBC soft-left line, which they normally do, and only John Humphries is fair. Question Time and Newsnight aren't worth watching anymore.
Really, it is worse than poor. It is truly terrible. And we still have to pay a compulsory tax to them to watch *any* TV?
Poppycock.
I would happily sell my house and all its contents to help the BBC!
Not the nine o'clock news spoof of points of view, I seem to remember.
On the BBC I'm struggling to see a long-term future. What good dramas have they made recently? I mean, global successes?
There's Sherlock. Um.. Poldark is ok. And that's about it. Please don't mention Call the Midwife or Broadchurch. I almost wrote Downton Abbey too (ITV) - that's how bad it is.
Even on Sherlock they do, what, three episodes once every two years? It just looks complacent and lazy.
I can't think of a single good comedy. Miranda is gut-wrenchingly awful. HIGNFY and Mock the Week is virtually all I watch. The investigative journalism through Panorama is very hit and miss. Andrew Neil is worth a watch on This Week, but that's hardly prime time.
The David Attenborough programmes are still world class. I would miss those. But apart from that you're left with the Britainsgotstrictlycomexfactortripe. And the rest is dross.
Radio 4 is only good when they're not peddling the BBC soft-left line, which they normally do, and only John Humphries is fair. Question Time and Newsnight aren't worth watching anymore.
Really, it is worse than poor. It is truly terrible. And we still have to pay a compulsory tax to them to watch *any* TV?
Poppycock.
I would happily sell my house and all its contents to help the BBC!
What's truly funny about that is that you had to reach back thirty years for a decent comedy cultural reference from the BBC.
Am I right that Sporting Index spread lead for the Tories has shrunk from 17 to 13 ? What has happened that is so momentous ? Seems only between Con and Lab.
Sky News just said that Dave and Ed will be 'toughing it out' tomorrow night. Funny sort of fight where the two pugilists take turns in being thumped by the referee.
In terms of drama..the problem the BBC have is when they do put decent stuff out it is 6-8 episodes max.
With the world of HBO, Netflix, Amazon, the world has changed. They are making high quality, in some cases e.g Boardwalk Empire, massive budget cinematic experiences, but not 6 episodes, rather 14-24 per season.
People love the box sets and the demand is there to gobble up all that content, as people watch both at home and on the move.
US Cable and Streaming shows are not full season shows. They represent a switch by the US towards the UK model of 13 episode seasons (which is still a mainstay of the BBC). GoT is 10, BE is 13, HoC is 13, TWD is 16 virtually no cable drama goes over 16 episodes.
But that's not the problem with the BBC.
The problem with the BBC is that it tried to address NIMBY/Outraged concerns without considering how that would effect its long term future. Nonsense like Points of View pandering to the type of idiot who would actually write a letter because there's a repeat on destroyed them.
Back in the 70s and into the 80s the BBC mainstay was mixing new content with repeats allowing them to expand to two stations, while still providing a reasonable amount of quality content. This isn't cheap. No channel anywhere in the world can provide even 4 hours a night of new, quality drama and comedy. Even the US Networks with all the money they have offer only 3 hours per night and for only 24 weeks a year of New shows. The rest is reruns with the odd summer Spackle show.
In the 80s the BBC made a very smart decision to switch their mix, reduce their repeats (and combat the criticism) by importing US shows. Most of these were HIGHLY successful. But again they pandered to the Points of View mob who still complained about repeats but now complained about these massive ratings success US imports.
The BBC should have held firm. It hasn't imported a decent US show in 20 years (that I can think of). It gave up. And that forced it from the early 90s to start filling its schedule up with cheap, crappy magazine and reality shows, property porn and cooking. This is what killed it. for every Noels House Party, Masterchef and Strictly Come Dancing they have a dozen Tonight's the Night, Pet's Win Prizes, The Voice, The One Show and anything with Lorraine f*cking Pascal.
On the BBC I'm struggling to see a long-term future. What good dramas have they made recently? I mean, global successes?
There's Sherlock. Um.. Poldark is ok. And that's about it. Please don't mention Call the Midwife or Broadchurch. I almost wrote Downton Abbey too (ITV) - that's how bad it is.
Even on Sherlock they do, what, three episodes once every two years? It just looks complacent and lazy.
I can't think of a single good comedy. Miranda is gut-wrenchingly awful. HIGNFY and Mock the Week is virtually all I watch. The investigative journalism through Panorama is very hit and miss. Andrew Neil is worth a watch on This Week, but that's hardly prime time.
The David Attenborough programmes are still world class. I would miss those. But apart from that you're left with the Britainsgotstrictlycomexfactortripe. And the rest is dross.
Radio 4 is only good when they're not peddling the BBC soft-left line, which they normally do, and only John Humphries is fair. Question Time and Newsnight aren't worth watching anymore.
Really, it is worse than poor. It is truly terrible. And we still have to pay a compulsory tax to them to watch *any* TV?
Poppycock.
I would happily sell my house and all its contents to help the BBC!
What's truly funny about that is that you had to reach back thirty years for a decent comedy cultural reference from the BBC.
I like the BBC. I listen to Radio 6Music a lot and both 5 live, Radio 4 and Radio Leicester quite a bit.
There is a lot of good stuff on BBC 2, 3 and 4. There are a few too many cookery shows panel shows and talent contests for my liking, but they seem heavily watched for god only knows what reason!
I shall miss Topgear, but probably not that much. I hadn't watched the recent attenuated series as it has all become a bit too formulaic.
Someone has put Survation on Wiki showing Con lead 33-32. Presumably that's wrong?
It was me, I put it on as a Lab lead but managed to switch the Lab/Con figures. Someone then compounded the error by assuming the figures were correct and changing the formatting to match. D'oh. Now corrected. That'll teach me to update Wiki tables while cooking dinner.
I need to update the England figures, but it's a bit fiddly as you have to extract the figures from GB tables, so it will probably have to wait for the weekend. Anyone else feel free to contribute.
On the BBC I'm struggling to see a long-term future. What good dramas have they made recently? I mean, global successes?
There's Sherlock. Um.. Poldark is ok. And that's about it. Please don't mention Call the Midwife or Broadchurch. I almost wrote Downton Abbey too (ITV) - that's how bad it is.
Even on Sherlock they do, what, three episodes once every two years? It just looks complacent and lazy.
I can't think of a single good comedy. Miranda is gut-wrenchingly awful. HIGNFY and Mock the Week is virtually all I watch. The investigative journalism through Panorama is very hit and miss. Andrew Neil is worth a watch on This Week, but that's hardly prime time.
The David Attenborough programmes are still world class. I would miss those. But apart from that you're left with the Britainsgotstrictlycomexfactortripe. And the rest is dross.
Radio 4 is only good when they're not peddling the BBC soft-left line, which they normally do, and only John Humphries is fair. Question Time and Newsnight aren't worth watching anymore.
Really, it is worse than poor. It is truly terrible. And we still have to pay a compulsory tax to them to watch *any* TV?
Poppycock.
I would happily sell my house and all its contents to help the BBC!
They could probably roll up the better quality product of all seven or eight BBC channels into just one single channel so that it consistently provided good quality product whilst ditching the remaining 85%.
They made the mistake of copying Sky's quantity model ten-fifteen years ago.
On the BBC I'm struggling to see a long-term future. What good dramas have they made recently? I mean, global successes?
There's Sherlock. Um.. Poldark is ok. And that's about it. Please don't mention Call the Midwife or Broadchurch. I almost wrote Downton Abbey too (ITV) - that's how bad it is.
Even on Sherlock they do, what, three episodes once every two years? It just looks complacent and lazy.
I can't think of a single good comedy. Miranda is gut-wrenchingly awful. HIGNFY and Mock the Week is virtually all I watch. The investigative journalism through Panorama is very hit and miss. Andrew Neil is worth a watch on This Week, but that's hardly prime time.
The David Attenborough programmes are still world class. I would miss those. But apart from that you're left with the Britainsgotstrictlycomexfactortripe. And the rest is dross.
Radio 4 is only good when they're not peddling the BBC soft-left line, which they normally do, and only John Humphries is fair. Question Time and Newsnight aren't worth watching anymore.
Really, it is worse than poor. It is truly terrible. And we still have to pay a compulsory tax to them to watch *any* TV?
Poppycock.
I would happily sell my house and all its contents to help the BBC!
Someone has put Survation on Wiki showing Con lead 33-32. Presumably that's wrong?
It was me, I put it on as a Lab lead but managed to switch the Lab/Con figures. Someone then compounded the error by assuming the figures were correct and changing the formatting to match. D'oh. Now corrected. That'll teach me to update Wiki tables while cooking dinner.
I need to update the England figures, but it's a bit fiddly as you have to extract the figures from GB tables, so it will probably have to wait for the weekend. Anyone else feel free to contribute.
No problem - thanks for the reply.
My IT skills are non-existent so I'll keep well out of the way.
Someone has put Survation on Wiki showing Con lead 33-32. Presumably that's wrong?
It was me, I put it on as a Lab lead but managed to switch the Lab/Con figures. Someone then compounded the error by assuming the figures were correct and changing the formatting to match. D'oh. Now corrected. That'll teach me to update Wiki tables while cooking dinner.
I need to update the England figures, but it's a bit fiddly as you have to extract the figures from GB tables, so it will probably have to wait for the weekend. Anyone else feel free to contribute.
No problem - thanks for the reply.
My IT skills are non-existent so I'll keep well out of the way.
I never know what the proper 'Others' figure is, so always leave it to the (self-anointed) experts on there!
On the BBC I'm struggling to see a long-term future. What good dramas have they made recently? I mean, global successes?
There's Sherlock. Um.. Poldark is ok. And that's about it. Please don't mention Call the Midwife or Broadchurch. I almost wrote Downton Abbey too (ITV) - that's how bad it is.
Even on Sherlock they do, what, three episodes once every two years? It just looks complacent and lazy.
I can't think of a single good comedy. Miranda is gut-wrenchingly awful. HIGNFY and Mock the Week is virtually all I watch. The investigative journalism through Panorama is very hit and miss. Andrew Neil is worth a watch on This Week, but that's hardly prime time.
The David Attenborough programmes are still world class. I would miss those. But apart from that you're left with the Britainsgotstrictlycomexfactortripe. And the rest is dross.
Radio 4 is only good when they're not peddling the BBC soft-left line, which they normally do, and only John Humphries is fair. Question Time and Newsnight aren't worth watching anymore.
Really, it is worse than poor. It is truly terrible. And we still have to pay a compulsory tax to them to watch *any* TV?
Poppycock.
I would happily sell my house and all its contents to help the BBC!
What's truly funny about that is that you had to reach back thirty years for a decent comedy cultural reference from the BBC.
NTNN, Blackadder, Big Train, Alan Partridge, The Office and even Saxondale were all fantastic. In fact, I still watch them on DVD now.
But most of the big hits are getting on for 20-30 years old now. The classic sitcoms even older. And nothing worth mentioning in the last five years. Zip.
On the BBC I'm struggling to see a long-term future. What good dramas have they made recently? I mean, global successes?
There's Sherlock. Um.. Poldark is ok. And that's about it. Please don't mention Call the Midwife or Broadchurch. I almost wrote Downton Abbey too (ITV) - that's how bad it is.
Even on Sherlock they do, what, three episodes once every two years? It just looks complacent and lazy.
I can't think of a single good comedy. Miranda is gut-wrenchingly awful. HIGNFY and Mock the Week is virtually all I watch. The investigative journalism through Panorama is very hit and miss. Andrew Neil is worth a watch on This Week, but that's hardly prime time.
The David Attenborough programmes are still world class. I would miss those. But apart from that you're left with the Britainsgotstrictlycomexfactortripe. And the rest is dross.
Radio 4 is only good when they're not peddling the BBC soft-left line, which they normally do, and only John Humphries is fair. Question Time and Newsnight aren't worth watching anymore.
Really, it is worse than poor. It is truly terrible. And we still have to pay a compulsory tax to them to watch *any* TV?
Poppycock.
On the BBC, I watch Poldark and Banished (both quite good TV dramas), also (guilty pleasure) Masterchef. There are some odd cookery and nature shows I enjoy. I sometimes use the BBC website, watch the news, though the other news shows are just as good.
And that's it. No radio, no sport (all Sky, apart from rugger), no movies, no other dramas, nothing. Everything else I watch is American imported TV drama series, Sky movies, Sky sports, ITV series (I like Downton), etc etc
The one world class entertainment show they made was Top Gear, which, for all its cantankerous faults, could still be superbly funny. And now they've fucked that up, too.
I am no longer prepared to pay a licence fee. To hell with them. Don't care if they arrest me. It's just laughable now. I shall watch everything on my laptop and see if they dare.
They could probably roll up the better quality product of all seven or eight BBC channels into just one single channel so that it consistently provided good quality product whilst ditching the remaining 85%.
They made the mistake of copying Sky's quantity model ten-fifteen years ago.
The whole saga over cutting BBC3...and basically coming to a fudge...and it is still broadcasting, tells you all you need to know when it comes to making tough decisions.
BBC3 is only on in the evening, they repeat the shows from early evening later on and overall there is only a few hours of original content each week. They could have stuck this on BBC2 / iPlayer, but the feet dragging has left tracks hundreds of miles long. And all the indecision just makes it worse when it finally does go.
Sky on the other hand have no issues in cutting and changing minor channels.
Am I right in understanding that Ed Miliband would not answer the NI question at PMQs. Yet within a couple of hours Ed Balls stated that indeed he would it rule out in the manifesto.
British production companies and TV channels do not have the killer instinct of their US counterparts. In the 90's 'Cold Feet' was absolutely massive, but they cranked out a few series then just stopped as they felt they had 'come to a natural end' or whatever. Look at 'Friends' on the other hand -if they had a shit uninspired series, they didn't stop, they just made the next one. They know how to milk a cash cow there. We have the talent and they have the financial nous -it's always been that way.
Someone has put Survation on Wiki showing Con lead 33-32. Presumably that's wrong?
It was me, I put it on as a Lab lead but managed to switch the Lab/Con figures. Someone then compounded the error by assuming the figures were correct and changing the formatting to match. D'oh. Now corrected. That'll teach me to update Wiki tables while cooking dinner.
I need to update the England figures, but it's a bit fiddly as you have to extract the figures from GB tables, so it will probably have to wait for the weekend. Anyone else feel free to contribute.
No problem - thanks for the reply.
My IT skills are non-existent so I'll keep well out of the way.
I never know what the proper 'Others' figure is, so always leave it to the (self-anointed) experts on there!
It's not codified in writing anywhere, my practice (which seems to be followed by others) is:
* If "others" is quoted in the headline figures, use that.
* If not, add the main parties up and take them away from 100. It seems to me that this will give you a lower potential error than adding up all the minor parties each of which is rounded to the nearest whole number.
On the BBC I'm struggling to see a long-term future. What good dramas have they made recently? I mean, global successes?
There's Sherlock. Um.. Poldark is ok. And that's about it. Please don't mention Call the Midwife or Broadchurch. I almost wrote Downton Abbey too (ITV) - that's how bad it is.
Even on Sherlock they do, what, three episodes once every two years? It just looks complacent and lazy.
I can't think of a single good comedy. Miranda is gut-wrenchingly awful. HIGNFY and Mock the Week is virtually all I watch. The investigative journalism through Panorama is very hit and miss. Andrew Neil is worth a watch on This Week, but that's hardly prime time.
The David Attenborough programmes are still world class. I would miss those. But apart from that you're left with the Britainsgotstrictlycomexfactortripe. And the rest is dross.
Radio 4 is only good when they're not peddling the BBC soft-left line, which they normally do, and only John Humphries is fair. Question Time and Newsnight aren't worth watching anymore.
Really, it is worse than poor. It is truly terrible. And we still have to pay a compulsory tax to them to watch *any* TV?
Poppycock.
I would happily sell my house and all its contents to help the BBC!
What's truly funny about that is that you had to reach back thirty years for a decent comedy cultural reference from the BBC.
NTNN, Blackadder, Big Train, Alan Partridge, The Office and even Saxondale were all fantastic. In fact, I still watch them on DVD now.
But most of the big hits are getting on for 20-30 years old now. The classic sitcoms even older. And nothing worth mentioning in the last five years. Zip.
Bad Education and Cuckoo are as good as any of their older "classic" or "cult" comedies. They suffered from being on BBC3 instead of BBC2 but even with that I'm pretty confident both will be in the same brack as The Young Ones and Blackadder in years to come.
The BBC can still do great content it just gets lost in all the crap.
On the BBC I'm struggling to see a long-term future. What good dramas have they made recently? I mean, global successes?
There's Sherlock. Um.. Poldark is ok. And that's about it. Please don't mention Call the Midwife or Broadchurch. I almost wrote Downton Abbey too (ITV) - that's how bad it is.
...
The David Attenborough programmes are still world class. I would miss those. But apart from that you're left with the Britainsgotstrictlycomexfactortripe. And the rest is dross. ...
Sherlock. Based on books well over a hundred years old with an incredibly well-known and bankable central character.
Poldark. Adapted from books written in the 1940s/50s and already previously adapted decades ago.
David Attenborough. Has been making nature programmes since the 1960s.
On the BBC I'm struggling to see a long-term future. What good dramas have they made recently? I mean, global successes?
There's Sherlock. Um.. Poldark is ok. And that's about it. Please don't mention Call the Midwife or Broadchurch. I almost wrote Downton Abbey too (ITV) - that's how bad it is.
...
The David Attenborough programmes are still world class. I would miss those. But apart from that you're left with the Britainsgotstrictlycomexfactortripe. And the rest is dross. ...
Sherlock. Based on books well over a hundred years old with an incredibly well-known and bankable central character.
Poldark. Adapted from books written in the 1940s/50s and already previously adapted decades ago.
David Attenborough. Has been making nature programmes since the 1960s.
They could probably roll up the better quality product of all seven or eight BBC channels into just one single channel so that it consistently provided good quality product whilst ditching the remaining 85%.
They made the mistake of copying Sky's quantity model ten-fifteen years ago.
The whole saga over cutting BBC3...and basically coming to a fudge...and it is still broadcasting, tells you all you need to know when it comes to making tough decisions.
BBC3 is only on in the evening, they repeat the shows from early evening later on and overall there is only a few hours of original content each week. They could have stuck this on BBC2 / iPlayer, but the feet dragging has left tracks hundreds of miles long. And all the indecision just makes it worse when it finally does go.
Sky on the other hand have no issues in cutting and changing minor channels.
There is literally no reason for me to watch BBC3 now that Family Guy is leaving for ITV.
Comments
I said I would apologise if Nigel appears in the debates. And I will. If it happens.
It's only since the start of March that the parties have been consistently tied.
https://twitter.com/Sunil_P2/status/579768223928844288
My own view is that current polling establishes the views of self-selected oddballs. What we need is to scrap phone polling, scrap online panels and get some big, big online businesses like Paypal and Tesco to stick an occasional question in the login or checkout process saying "Hey, you don't have to, but we'll credit your account with 50p if you answer this VI question for us".
A rare thing to see on here I admit
Bottled not welched
Ok I'll await the apology, small consolation for the money you should be coughing up but still
:classic-seventies:
'This town ain't big enough', 1974!
"I haven't bitten someone since I was 4yrs old!"
You can't walk ten yards in Newcastle without some guy in a white T-shirt looking like he's spent the night with a vampire
Ask the same question a few times too (can you remember if you voted back in 2010? Who did you vote for?) - if you get the same answer a few times then you've got more reliable data. Different answers then you discard it
Paypal etc can also link it to postcodes & the ER.
I can't remember seeing any studies of the matter.
But, why should that happen, unless the whole process has some self-correcting tendency towards an evenly-matched outcome?
Either the voters or the pollsters are ensuring that the outcome of any poll acts to regulate the system by opposing changes.
And this may be connected with the fact that this is the most polled election ever.
So keep it up, Nick.
Is there any sort of band called Yellow Box?
http://www.lbc.co.uk/scottish-labour-leader-jim-murphy---live-on-lbc-107077
''Your future is our future'' Tell that to Ed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Literary_Digest
My proposals of Tesco and Paypal obviate the howling errors made in that case (where they polled only magazine-subscribers, car- and telephone-owners in the days when those were all indicators of affluence).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/11493509/Last-orders-at-Downing-Street-as-beer-and-crisps-mark-end-of-Coalition.html
I think the one thing we can say with some confidence is that the pollsters will coalesce around a point that is wrong. Whether it is wrong to the benefit of the Tories or Labour is harder to say. Historically it has tended to be to the detriment of the Tories but pollsters have been trying so hard to remove that bias it is entirely possible they have overcompensated.
For the avoidance of any doubt I am not suggesting that any of our even vaguely reputable pollsters have any intentional bias at all. They are trying really hard to get it right in a world that increasingly does not want to speak to them. But it is just foolish not to acknowledge that they are businesses who have to keep an eye on what the competition is doing and to keep any risk taking to an acceptable level.
Or a belief in a system where correlation does equal causation; unscientific and grounded on conjecture. What to call it: The global-warming ['warm' in the German sense] of pop...?
:original-chevelle-fan:
Maybe could have been a Con lead in normal circumstances...?
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/09/tory-election-poster-ed-miliband-pocket-snp-alex-salmond
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11492482/Scottish-are-most-friendly-people-in-Britain...but-watch-out-for-grumpy-Londoners.html
I think you're on the right track with thinking of different ways to construct a random sample, but I don't think there's an easy answer.
rcs1000 Normally researchers with too much time on their hands
:troupe-of-jockanese-clowns:
* Monthly music-club default offering.
An Education
Billy Elliot
Damned United
The Duchess
In the Loop
Iris
We need to talk about Kevin
Project Nim
Philomena
Mrs Brown
and, er, Mrs Brown's Boys D'Movie....
There's Sherlock. Um.. Poldark is ok. And that's about it. Please don't mention Call the Midwife or Broadchurch. I almost wrote Downton Abbey too (ITV) - that's how bad it is.
Even on Sherlock they do, what, three episodes once every two years? It just looks complacent and lazy.
I can't think of a single good comedy. Miranda is gut-wrenchingly awful. HIGNFY and Mock the Week is virtually all I watch. The investigative journalism through Panorama is very hit and miss. Andrew Neil is worth a watch on This Week, but that's hardly prime time.
The David Attenborough programmes are still world class. I would miss those. But apart from that you're left with the Britainsgotstrictlycomexfactortripe. And the rest is dross.
Radio 4 is only good when they're not peddling the BBC soft-left line, which they normally do, and only John Humphries is fair. Question Time and Newsnight aren't worth watching anymore.
Really, it is worse than poor. It is truly terrible. And we still have to pay a compulsory tax to them to watch *any* TV?
Poppycock.
All she did was confirm that the Westminster Bubble knows their chips are probably up.
You can't explore any sort of complex issue in 25 mins. You need to the background, the context, before getting to the investigation and the summing up / right to reply.
PS
Billy Elliot was a good effort - but where was it set? Ah yes the miners strike...
With the world of HBO, Netflix, Amazon, the world has changed. They are making high quality, in some cases e.g Boardwalk Empire, massive budget cinematic experiences, but not 6 episodes, rather 14-24 per season.
People love the box sets and the demand is there to gobble up all that content, as people watch both at home and on the move.
In roughly about the time it has taken the BBC to make 9 episodes of Sherlock, there were 56 episodes of Boardwalk Empire (and that isn't even one of the shows that had really long seasons). Now more isn't always better, but in a world where people eat up content, you need plenty of it to keep feeding the demand.
However good Sherlock might be (I don't know, I don't watch it) realistically most people will watch each episode once, maybe twice, and then that will be it for quite a few years.
It is why panel shows are everywhere. Cheap and quick to produce.
Not the Nine O'clock News!
But that's not the problem with the BBC.
The problem with the BBC is that it tried to address NIMBY/Outraged concerns without considering how that would effect its long term future. Nonsense like Points of View pandering to the type of idiot who would actually write a letter because there's a repeat on destroyed them.
Back in the 70s and into the 80s the BBC mainstay was mixing new content with repeats allowing them to expand to two stations, while still providing a reasonable amount of quality content. This isn't cheap. No channel anywhere in the world can provide even 4 hours a night of new, quality drama and comedy. Even the US Networks with all the money they have offer only 3 hours per night and for only 24 weeks a year of New shows. The rest is reruns with the odd summer Spackle show.
In the 80s the BBC made a very smart decision to switch their mix, reduce their repeats (and combat the criticism) by importing US shows. Most of these were HIGHLY successful. But again they pandered to the Points of View mob who still complained about repeats but now complained about these massive ratings success US imports.
The BBC should have held firm. It hasn't imported a decent US show in 20 years (that I can think of). It gave up. And that forced it from the early 90s to start filling its schedule up with cheap, crappy magazine and reality shows, property porn and cooking. This is what killed it. for every Noels House Party, Masterchef and Strictly Come Dancing they have a dozen Tonight's the Night, Pet's Win Prizes, The Voice, The One Show and anything with Lorraine f*cking Pascal.
I don't think there is a way back for it.
There is a lot of good stuff on BBC 2, 3 and 4. There are a few too many cookery shows panel shows and talent contests for my liking, but they seem heavily watched for god only knows what reason!
I shall miss Topgear, but probably not that much. I hadn't watched the recent attenuated series as it has all become a bit too formulaic.
I need to update the England figures, but it's a bit fiddly as you have to extract the figures from GB tables, so it will probably have to wait for the weekend. Anyone else feel free to contribute.
They made the mistake of copying Sky's quantity model ten-fifteen years ago.
It was a NTNON sketch called "Points of View"
My IT skills are non-existent so I'll keep well out of the way.
But most of the big hits are getting on for 20-30 years old now. The classic sitcoms even older. And nothing worth mentioning in the last five years. Zip.
BBC3 is only on in the evening, they repeat the shows from early evening later on and overall there is only a few hours of original content each week. They could have stuck this on BBC2 / iPlayer, but the feet dragging has left tracks hundreds of miles long. And all the indecision just makes it worse when it finally does go.
Sky on the other hand have no issues in cutting and changing minor channels.
The LDs - http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lta21gPm3U1qhy4uu.gif
Am I right in understanding that Ed Miliband would not answer the NI question at PMQs. Yet within a couple of hours Ed Balls stated that indeed he would it rule out in the manifesto.
Which makes me wonder if:
A) Ed Balls has not shown Ed M the manifesto
Any other possibilities?
* If "others" is quoted in the headline figures, use that.
* If not, add the main parties up and take them away from 100. It seems to me that this will give you a lower potential error than adding up all the minor parties each of which is rounded to the nearest whole number.
The BBC can still do great content it just gets lost in all the crap.
Poldark. Adapted from books written in the 1940s/50s and already previously adapted decades ago.
David Attenborough. Has been making nature programmes since the 1960s.
So what's new?
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/buckingham/winning-party
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/mar/23/family-guy-leaves-bbc3-for-itv
I can only describe BBC content for the most part as being stale.